20

                                    

                                          
Zayn and I have arranged to meet at Seaview Park for our date.
                          
He'd wanted to pick me up, but Hanna insisted on tagging along. "I know the rumors aren't true ," she says, "but if anything weird ever happened and I didn't do anything to try and stop it, I'd never be able to forgive myself."
                          
"Anything weird?" She shrugs. "Like if you wound up tied up, dead, and buried in a shallow grave somewhere."
                          
"Seriously?"
                          
"Kidding." She rolls her eyes. "But that still doesn't change the fact that Mr. Touchy-Feely completely creeps me out." I watch as she sifts through my bedroom closet for something for me to wear.
                          
Wondering if I'm doing the right thing. I mean, yes, I want to find out the truth about him, but I honestly can't remember a time when I've been more unnerved.
                          
"How about this one?" she asks, holding up a lavender tunic. I take it and slip it on, too rattled even to pay much attention.
                          
"The winner," she announces , tossing me a pair of leggings and my strappy sandals. 
                          
Originally the plan was that she and Luke would come and we'd make it a foursome, but unfortunately, that plan got snagged when Hanna was grounded for making her eight-year-old brother, Tyler, do all her household chores for a week.
                          
As punishment, Hanna's parents have declared her Tyler's own personal slave for a period of seventy-two hours.
                          
Hanna has spent the last twenty-four of those hours dodging water balloons, making grilled-cheese-and-gummy-worm sandwiches, playing hide-and-seek, and organizing her brother's Matchbox car collection according to type, color, size, and year.
                          
You'd think all that torture would suffice. But not quite. Tyler refuses to let Hanna have the afternoon off. "He says either he comes along, or I can't go."
                          
"Are you kidding?" I ask, pulling the leggings on. 
                          
"Not kidding. I tried to talk him out of it, but that just made him want to come more. I'm lucky he even gave me this hour off for good behavior. You look hot, by the way."
                          
"Thanks," I say, running my fingers through my kinky hair, and seriously wondering if I'm going to be sick. 
                          
"Don't worry," Hanna assures me. "You won't even know we're there."
                          
"Right," I say, fairly confident that that won't be the case. But we go anyway, Hanna and me in the front seat of her parents' minivan and Tyler in the back , armed with his basketball, baseball, and hockey equipment. 
                          
We pull into the parking lot, my eyes scanning the area, looking for Zayn by the pavilion, at the fountain, or on one of the park benches.
                          
I finally spot him sitting on a blanket in the distance, a basket and cooler set up in front of him. "Who knew Zayn the Zapper was such a romantic?" Hanna whips a pair of binoculars out of her purse for a better view.
                          
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my jangled nerves. Meanwhile, Hanna adjusts the zoom lens on her binoculars, zeroing in on a guy jogging in the distance. 
                          
"Hey, that totally looks like your boss. Does Chase run?"
                          
"Okay, can we just focus on me for a moment?"
                          
"Relax. I'll only be a slasher-movie scream away," she teases. "At the baseball diamond," Tyler specifies. He pulls on his catcher's mask. 
                          
Hanna gives me a quick hug for luck, and then I climb out of the van and make my way toward Zayn. But, before I can even get halfway there, a soccer ball comes flying in my direction.